What's Happening

Carrying around extra pounds during middle age was associated with a higher risk of dementia [Alzheimer’s disease, memory loss, cognitive impairment] later in life in a new study that followed twins in Sweden for 30 years.

The research was not set up to prove that dementia was caused by the added weight, but Dr. Weili Xu, the study’s lead author from the Karolinksa Institutet in Stockholm, said that the evidence is pointing in that direction.

The findings, published in the journal Neurology, suggest that “control of body fat as early as middle life is important to prevent dementia later in life,” she told Reuters Health.

Xu and her colleagues analyzed data from close to 9,000 Swedish twins.

When the participants were an average age of 43, they gave researchers information about their height and weight.Thirty years later, the researchers examined the same individuals for signs of declining thinking and memory skills, then diagnosed some of them with Alzheimers disease and other types of dementia.